But all the same the walk had drawn them much nearer.
He stopped her at the little gate to say,—
"I'm going to ask you again—I want you to write to me when I'm in
France."
And this time she said almost eagerly,—
"Yes, I'll write; indeed I'll write! But you'll come over again before you go?"
"Rather," he said joyously; "rather! Why, there's a month. You'll be tired of me before you've done."
A few minutes later she was standing in her own little room, listening to the retreating rush of his motor-cycle down the road. There was a great tumult in her mind.
"Am I falling in love with him? Am I—am I?"
But in the dark, when she had put out her light, the cry that shaped itself in her mind was identical with that sudden misgiving of the afternoon, when on Ellesborough's arrival she had first heard his voice downstairs talking to Janet.
"I wish he knew!" But this time it was no mere passing qualm. It had grown into something intense and haunting.